how to find distribution name

[Sanjay Debian]

Hi,

I am part developer and part sys admin. But a very simple question by my manager tricked me.
question is, How do you find out name of the Linux distribution?

Well please don't tell me to start X. If I ssh to a Linux server then how would I know what distribution it is? "uname -a" does not tell me that.

May be a silly questions, but I am baffled nonetheless.